Nation Mourns President's Death -- 100 Years -- August 2, 2023

Washington Evening Star, 02-August-1923

President Warren G Harding, looking forward to running for a second term the following year, left Washington DC in early June for a speaking tour across the country all the way to the Territory of Alaska. In Alaska, he drove the last spike for the Alaska Railroad on 15-July-1923 and visited Mount McKinley (now Denali) national park. In late July, while still in Alaska, he complained of shortness of breath and other unwelcome symptoms. On 27-July-1923, Harding gave a speech in Seattle. That night, he woke up and complained of abdominal pain. His doctor expected heart trouble. On 29-July-1923, still ailing, he checked into the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. First lady Florence Harding read to him as he lay in bed on 02-August-1923. He died suddenly. Initial reports said he died of a stroke, but recent opinions says he died of a heart attack.

Vice President Calvin Coolidge was notified at this family's home in Plymouth, Vermont and his father, a justice of the peace, administered the presidential oath. 

NATION MOURNS PRESIDENT’S DEATH;

COOLIDGE RECOMES CHIEF EXECUTIVE

BODY WILL LEAVE FOR CAPITAL

TONIGHT, DUE HERE TUESDAY;

END SUDDEN, WITHOUT PAIN

Mrs. Harding Reading Aloud Beside Bed When Death Strikes;

Bears Tragedy Bravely.

RECOVERY THOUGHT SO CERTAIN PHYSICIANS HAD LEFT SICK ROOM

Apoplexy or Rupture of Blood Vessel in Brain Causes Passing of

Nation’s Leader.

By the Associated Press. 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., August 3. -- A nation today mourned the passing of its leader.

The American people from coast to coast and from lakes to gulf, and in the territories beyond the seas, bowed their heads in grief, for their President was dead. In the early hours of last evening, after a day which had brought renewed hope of recovery, death came suddenly and struck down Warren G. Harding with a stroke of cerebral apoplexy.

The end came instantaneously and without even a second of warning, at 7:30 o’clock. There was no time to summon additional physicians. No time to call the members of his official family, and no time for medical skill to exercise its knowledge. It was all over in the twinkling of an eye, and it left a nation and the world shocked and in grief.

Mrs. Harding, the constant companion of her distinguished husband, was faithful to the end. She was reading to him a few minutes before 7:30 o’clock when she noticed a shudder run through the frame of the man she had loved, encouraged in adversity and praised in success. Before she could arise from her chair Mr. Harding collapsed in his bed, and she rushed to the door calling for the physicians to come quickly.

Brig. Gen. Sawyer, chief of the staff of physicians, who had been attending the Chief Executive, who also was in the room, and the two nurses present. Miss Ruth Powderly and Miss Sue Dausser. did all they could, but it availed nothing.

The President had fought and won one victory against disease, but it appeared in a more insidious form, and he lost the battle.

Became World Figure.

Great as was the shock to all who dwell under the American flag and to peoples in many lands -- for Mr. Harding by virtue of his office, his kindly and his lovable personality had become a world figure -- the great shock came to his wife, reading by his side, but she did not collapse.

"She was shocked, of course, and at first unable to realize that she had lost the husband who had made up all the interest in her life, for so many proud and happy years," said Gen. Sawyer later. "But there was no collapse, no hysteria just a brave rally to face her sorrows and the duties devolving upon her at this hour."

Mrs. Harding was standing the shock well early today, but whether she could stand up under the grief that bore down upon her as the sad journey back to Washington is made was another question. Those who know her best say that she will.

Reach Capital Tuesday.

When dawn crept over the mountains and lighted up the Golden Gate this morning almost all of the arrangements for this trip -- the saddest transcontinental journey in the history of the nation -- had been made. The trip will be started about 7 o'clock this evening, and should end in Washington Tuesday morning.

The train will go direct to Washington by way of Reno, Ogden, Cheyenne, Omaha and Chicago.

This announcement was made after a conference participated in by the four members of the President's official party In San Francisco, and was approved by Mrs. Harding.

The car will be lighted at night, and at all times two soldiers and two sailors, a part of a naval and military guard of sixteen enlisted men, will stand at attention guarding the casket.

Train to Make No Stops.

The train will make no stops enroute except those necessary for its operation. The body of the President will be borne in the rear car, probably the same in which he made the trip from the capital to the Pacific coast.

The train will carry the presidential party as composed during the trip across the country to Alaska, and also Gen. Pershing, Attorney General Daugherty and Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Remsberg and family, Mrs. Remsberg being a sister of the President.

The body will not be taken from the hotel except to go directly to the train, and there will be only the very simplest private ceremony at the hotel before it is moved.

The final Interment of the body of President Harding will be at Marion, Ohio, his home city, a member of the presidential party announced today. The body of the President lay today in the room in which he suffered and died.

The five physicians who attended the President were united in their decisions as to the cause of death. In a statement issued last night and signed by all of them they declared it was due to "apoplexy or a rupture of blood vessel in the axis of the brain near the respiratory center."

The statement emphasized that death from such a cause might have occurred at any time and came after recovery of the acute illness he had suffered for a week was in progress.

Confident of Recovery.

The statement showed conclusively that the physicians as well as everyone else believed up to the minute the executive was subjected to the apoplectic attack that he was on the road to recovery. Three hours before the end came the most optimistic bulletin issued since the President was taken ill was made public. It said that he had spent the "most comfortable day since his illness began." The bulletin was timed 4:20 p.m.

"The evidences of infection are subsiding but he has been left in a very weakened condition by the hard battle he has made," the bulletin added. "This afternoon the temperature is remaining normal, with the pulse rate around 100 and the respirations averaging about thirty. Other factors remain the same."

The bulletin was so optimistic that there was a general letting down in the watchfulness that has attended the President’s illness. Members of the cabinet and their wives, the personnel of the executive staff and many of the newspaper men went out to dinners, where most of the talk was when the trip back to Washington would be started. At no time since the President was brought to San Francisco Sunday morning was the vicinity of the presidential suite as deserted as it was about 7 o’clock last night.

Few Near Death Scene.

Outside the suite the usual secret service men stood guard -- they also discussing when they would get back to Washington -- and down the corridor a little handful of newspapermen were gathered.

Mrs. Harding, Gen. Sawyer and the two nurses, however, had not relinquished their watchfulness, and it is truly typical of Mrs. Harding that she should have been there, for no first lady of the land was ever more devoted and faithful to her husband than was Mrs. Harding.

Mrs. Harding was reading to the President an article entitled "A Calm Review of a Calm Man," written by Samuel G. Blythe, a noted political writer, and published in a current magazine. It described the man to whom she was reading, and he was interested In it. She paused In her reading and glanced up, he raised his hand and said: "That’s good. Go on. Read some more."

Those were the last words President Harding spoke. In an instant a shudder shook his frame, his hand dropped, and he collapsed.

Mrs. Harding was at the door instantly and called:

"Find Boone and the others! Quick!"

One of the secret service men rushed down the corridor searching for Dr. Boone, while Gen. Sawyer worked desperately within the room, applying restoratives. Dr. Boone could not be found on the eighth floor, and messengers were sent out. He was found and came in almost running at 7:37 o'clock. Several others had gone Into the room In the meantime, and those that came out were plainly greatly distressed.

Hoover Grief Stricken.

One of these was Secretary Hoover, whose face was blanched and his eyes dim. All he could say to newspapermen was that there would be a statement soon. At 7:45 o’clock it was announced that there would be a formal statement within a few minutes and at 7:51 o’clock it was issued. It said:

"The President died instantaneously and without warning while conversing with members of his family at 7:30. Death was apparently due to some brain development. probably apoplexy.

"During the day he had been free from discomfort and there was every justification for anticipating a prompt recovery.

(Signed)

"C. E. SAWYER. M. D.

"RAY LYMAN WILBUR, M. D.

"C. M. COOPER. M. D.

"J. T. BOONE. M. D.

"HUBERT WORK. M. D."

 
This was followed by a second bulletin which made the flat announcement that death was due to apoplexy and that Mrs. Harding, Gen. Sawyer and the two nurses were in the room at the time.

One of the Associated Press representatives, who have been on watch ever since the President was brought to San Francisco last Sunday morning, heard Mrs. Harding's appeal for the doctors, saw the secret service man hurry down the hall in search of Dr. Boone, and at 7:29 o’clock sent a bulletin traveling over the wires to all parts of the country telling of the call for the physicians, and then followed with bulletins giving more details of what was occurring in the vicinity of the presidential suite. Thus newspaper editors were aware of something impending fully twenty-two minutes before the announcement of death was made.

When the death announcement was made it was flashed to all points of the nation by the Associated Press by telegraph and telephone, and to the most distant parts of the world by cable and radio. Thus it was that newspapers were on the streets in New York with announcement of the passing of the republic’s chief before it became at all generally known about the hotel.

Confusion Follows.

The announcement was followed momentarily by confusion in the vicinity of the presidential suite, but soon the trained members of the executive staff took charge, the physicians conferred and later issued their detailed statement as to the cause of death, and the cabinet members meeting together decided upon and submitted to Mrs. Harding for approval the plans for the return trip to Washington.

Messages were dispatched, telling of the sad news, to George B. Christian, Jr, the President’s secretary, who had gone to Los Angeles to speak for the President at a Knights Templar meeting, to the other cabinet members, and to Calvin Coolidge. the Vice President, who early today took the oath of office at his home in Plymouth. Vt. and became the head of the nation.

The detailed statement by the physicians described the changes in the President’s physical condition dating from last spring, when the President, following a long period of overwork and great strain, was confined to his bed with an attack of influenza. This attack was more serious than the general public ever realized, and its effects had not been entirely dissipated when the present trip was started in June, despite the five weeks’ vacation spent in Florida and Georgia in March and early April.

Had Suffered Since Spring.

The President, it was revealed, had been subject to some attacks of abdominal pains and indigestion, and there had for some time been evidences of arterio-sclerosis. enlargement of the heart and defective action of the kidneys. The statement then recited that the executive had suffered an acute gastro-intestinal attack, associated with abdominal pain and fever, on the return trip from Alaska, and told how he had insisted on going through with his program in Vancouver, B. C. a week ago Thursday, and at Seattle a week ago yesterday. The statement then told of the cancellation of the proposed trip into the Yosemite, of his arrival here Sunday morning, and traced his varying condition during the week.

"Most disturbing of all." it said, "was the rapid and irregular breathing, suggestive of arterio-sclerosis of the brain vessels in the region of the respiratory center."

The physicians reviewed the favorable conditions existing just prior to the apoplectic attack and concluded by saying;

"He was resting comfortably in bed and conversing with Mrs. Harding and Gen. Sawyer when he died instantly without a word or a groan."

The best explanation of the death of the chief executive may be found in these words by Lieut. Commander Joel T. Boone, assistant to Dr. Sawyer, as the President’s physician:

"The President had a most splendid afternoon," he said. "When I left the room for dinner, I commented: "Doesn't he look splendid?" Then all at once he just went like that --" Dr. Boone snapped his fingers. "Just like that, something snapped; that’s all."

The physician's statement follows:

"Last spring, following a long period of overwork and great strain, President Harding was confined to his bed with an attack of influenza, which was followed by a few nocturnal attacks of labored breathing. His recovery was slow, and he had not fully regained his normal strength and health when he started out on the trip to Alaska. He had also had some attacks of abdominal pain and Indigestion, and at times he had some pain associated with feeling of oppression in the chest. For some years his systolic blood pressure had ranged around 180. and there was evidence of some arterial sclerosis, enlargement of the heart and defective action of the kidneys except for fatigue and the fact that his heart and blood vessels were some years older than the rest of his body, he was in reasonable good health.

"On the return trip from Alaska he had an acute gastro-intestinal attack, associated-with abdominal pain and fever. In spite of his illness he insisted on putting through his program of speaking in Vancouver and Seattle. He had considerable difficulty in completing his addresses in Seattle because of weakness and pain. Because of this he was persuaded to come directly to San Francisco, and arrived at the Palace Hotel Sunday morning, July 28. He dressed and walked to the automobile from the train. Sunday evening a consultation was called because his temperature had risen to 102 and his pulse and respiration were abnormally rapid. The abdominal difficulty had by this time become localized in the gall bladder region, but there was a general toxemia with fever and leucocytesis. A central broncho-pneumonia soon developed on the left side. It was accompanied by short circulatory collapses and cold sweats and an irregular pulse. Most disturbing of all was the rapid and irregular breathing, suggestive of arteriosclerosis of the brain vessels In the region of the respiratory center.

"Under treatment marked Improvement in the pneumonia and circulatory disturbances took place, and Thursday, August 2, he was free from fever and pain; the acute lung condition was practically gone. He was resting comfortably in bed and conversing with Mrs. Harding and Gen. Sawyer when he died instantaneously, without a word or a groan.

"We all believe he died from apoplexy or a rupture of a blood vessel in the axis of the brain near the respiratory centers. His death came after recovery from the acute illness was in process. It might have occurred at any time. One of his sisters died suddenly in the same manner. (Signed)

"C. E. SAWYER. M. D.

"RAY LYMAN WILBUR, M. D.

"C. M. COOPER. M. D.

"J. T. BOONE. M. D.

"HUBERT WORK. M. D."

Hastily summoned members of the President’s party, led by Secretary Hoover, had hardly left the room which now had become a death chamber before the cry of newsboys call the extras rose from the streets far below.

Mingled with these calls was heard the soft crying of a woman. It was not Mrs Harding, though, for, as much as she desired to give expression to the greatest grief that can come to a woman, she met the situation calmly.

Secretary Hoover left the room just before the news of the President's death was announced, and in answer to inquiries from a small group of newspaper men. said:

"Boys. I can’t tell you a thing."

He spoke in a voice that was choked and his expression denoted deep and sudden grief. after the first announcement was made the corridors at the President's suite became filled, nearby with members of the President's official party, and farther away with newspapermen and others, mostly city, state and federal officials, who had heard of the news.

Hotel officials, among the first to whom word of the tragic event was given, immediately had the great blue presidential flag with its gold seal of the United Slates hauled down and then raised again to half-staff.

Dance Stops.

A minute or two later an assistant manager rushed into the Rose Bowl room, where a dinner dance was in progress, raised a hand and stopped the orchestra’s playing. Announcement of the death of the Executive followed, and the dancers, their gay dress a sad contrast to their expressions of gravity, gathered into little groups, obtained their wraps and departed.

The news passed from lip to lip. Some guests, more curious than their fellows, gathered in groups at the ends of the corridors leading to the presidential rooms and stared down the hallways at the screens which shut off the view of the suite where the forty-ninth President of the United States lay silent in death.

Several minutes of the President’s last quarter of an hour alive were devoted, as had been much of his life, to childhood and its interests.

Two little girls came to the Presidential suite just before 7 o'clock with flowers, seeking to present them to the President.

Mrs. Harding, who shares the President’s lifelong love of children, graciously came from the sick room to speak a word to the two tots, and accepted their gift. Returning to the President, she took with her a few of the blossoms, and these were in the room a few minutes later when he died.

Even after the President was dead the telegrams which have been coming ever since his illness, all expressing hopes for his recovery, or gratification that he had made such satisfactory progress, were continuing to

A minute or two after his death, a messenger brought in a large bundle of them.

Several of the state and national figures, who hurried to the presidential suite to express their sympathy and leave condolences, later issued formal statements on the President's death.